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In September 2015, sixteen federal agencies released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that outlined far-reaching changes to the Common Rule. The Common Rule is the regulatory framework for all federally funded human subjects research; many U.S. institutions extend it to nonfederally funded research as well. There have been increasing calls for revising the Rule, which has been essentially unchanged since 1991. In responding to these calls, the NPRM aims to “modernize, simplify and enhance the current system of oversight” and “strengthen protections for human research subjects while facilitating important research” (1). Laudable changes include moving much minimal-risk sociobehavioral research beyond the scope of intensive institutional review board (IRB) oversight and transitioning toward single ethics review of multisite studies (2, 3). On balance, however, the NPRM may complicate rather than simplify the current system of oversight and impede rather than facilitate much important research.